HILLS.
skinny4baby2
Posts: 19
I live near the half marathon I'm running in July. Last night I printed the course map and drove it just to see what I was up against.
Miles 1-3: Lots of small to medium up and downhill. Not a huge deal, especially at the start.
Miles 4-7: Dead flat running past farms and pastures. Awesome.
Mile 8: Steady intense-ish uphill over a freeway overpass. A little intimidating.
Miles 9-10: Steady gradual uphill for a mile and a half then about a half mile of the SCARIEST hill I have ever seen. Like, vertical. Ironically, a mortuary is at the top of this hill. Who are these sick people who came up with the course???
Miles 11-12: Pretty constant but gradual uphill. Wouldn't be awful if I hadn't just run 10 miles including a huge steep hill at mile 10. Maybe it won't seem as bad after the scary hill? If my legs aren't jello by then?
Last mileish: flat again
I am freaking out about miles 8-12! I obviously need to spend my next 6 weeks doing lots of long, tempo, and regular runs on hillier terrain (I'll probably even drive to the actual course a few times). But I'm still nervous. Should I adjust my time goal for the hills? What advice do you have if you've done a half that has lots of hills? How should I be training? How do I gear up mentally?
Miles 1-3: Lots of small to medium up and downhill. Not a huge deal, especially at the start.
Miles 4-7: Dead flat running past farms and pastures. Awesome.
Mile 8: Steady intense-ish uphill over a freeway overpass. A little intimidating.
Miles 9-10: Steady gradual uphill for a mile and a half then about a half mile of the SCARIEST hill I have ever seen. Like, vertical. Ironically, a mortuary is at the top of this hill. Who are these sick people who came up with the course???
Miles 11-12: Pretty constant but gradual uphill. Wouldn't be awful if I hadn't just run 10 miles including a huge steep hill at mile 10. Maybe it won't seem as bad after the scary hill? If my legs aren't jello by then?
Last mileish: flat again
I am freaking out about miles 8-12! I obviously need to spend my next 6 weeks doing lots of long, tempo, and regular runs on hillier terrain (I'll probably even drive to the actual course a few times). But I'm still nervous. Should I adjust my time goal for the hills? What advice do you have if you've done a half that has lots of hills? How should I be training? How do I gear up mentally?
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I'm interested in hearing any advice. I'm doing a 7 miler at the end of July that starts with the first 1/3rd mile up a pretty steep hill. Yikes! I've been trying to find places that have hills for my long run (very hard in my area). Hopefully someone will come along with some words of wisdom for us.0
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Whenever I see that an upcoming race has lots of hills I try to get out and do hill repeats. If you do not have proper hills in your area I hope that you can get to a treadmill to simulate hills.
I use a treadmill when I don't have time to drive to the hills I need to run. I put up the incline to 4 % and do 5-8 repeats of 90seconds HILL and 60 secounds rest. My current pace is 5.5 on the hills and 5.0 when in recovery. Message me if you have more questions and good luck.
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I agree with PP about incorporating more hills in your training. My neighborhood has a few ridiculous hills that I run. My last race had a hill challenge in it, and I felt pretty good conquering it. Also, if mile 10 is that insane, don't count out walking that hill. You would have to adjust your target time for that, though...
Since you live near the course, is there any chance you can go run the monster hill a few times?0 -
Yeah, I think I will go practice that nasty hill a time or two. I live about a 10-minute drive from some awesome rolling hills, so I'm going to make sure to do the rest of my long runs and a few of the others over there instead of running the flat stuff right by my apartment. I did 4 miles over there today and it felt good! I was able to maintain my pace even though it definitely took more effort on the bigger uphill stuff. I'm not as scared as I was the other day.
I can do this! 0 -
I have only run one race so far, and I was quite concerned about the hills. So the last few weeks I was training, I ran hills as much as I could. I never got to the elevations of the race course, which I had not seen in person, but I did all I could. And they weren't bad at all. I was doing walk/run intervals, and if a walk interval came when I was running up a hill, I took it. If a walk interval came when I was running down a hill, I ignored it and just saw how fast I could run down the hill. Although the hills were higher than the ones I had practiced on, they were not as steep, and I did all right.0
